Steps we take in life

The Fifth Step

The fifth step is the detour. Well, it is not an actual step in which one would take a higher progress in life; detours actually occurs in every step. They're just there; a constant fork in ones path, giving you the choice weather to walk through it or not. Though as every step gets tougher the more these detours will look exactly like the real step: making it even more confusing as we go through this CHANGE.

But it's not all negative. Detours are not there to make things more difficult, they are there to affirm us that we are still taking the right path or the path that we have chosen for our CHANGE. In reality, detours are either positive or negative. It's up to the person weather his experience of it will be for his own growth or downfall.

Here is a concrete view of a detour. It'll look exactly like the original step: the foothold in which you are currently stepping in, like a mirror. You will be caught into it if you are not looking closely into were you are currently in--lack of FOCUS. Then you'd go traversing it as if you are going through the next step. But then you'll realize (may it be sooner or later, depending in each individual's perceptiveness) that instead of going up you are actually going in circles or even down. If you'd try to trace your step back, it'll be pointless cause everything looks exactly the same. Thus, your only resolve is to go through it once you've realize you're in it.

The catch. Detours basically goes back to the main road or in this sense, to the original step. But as you go through it, different lures are set in its path.

The first lure is the feeling of going up or taking in a new step. Detours attack the feeling, the emotion rather than the physical. The physical damage are done soley by you in a subtle manner then grows. It's like a wound cut shallowly then becomes life threatening. The 'feel good' sensation of breaking through a new ground is the weapon of the first lure. It's like a reflection of what you've always wanted but it's not and yet you'll take it 'feeling' that it is. Again, it attacks the emotion--feelings in this sense. No one would ever deny that what he or she feels is superficial. You will be caught.

The second lure. Attraction or the Tease. Once your feelings had been engulf it will tease you more making you chase it. Picture out these scenario: A man together with his girl at the seashore. The girl flirts around making the boy chase after her, and they would chase each other along the shore line. To a passerby it'll look sweet and flirtatious--normal to lovers-nothing seems wrong. The lure is the girl and you'll be the guy chasing after her. She would portray a hard-to-get girl and you'll toy around this feeling prolonging the captivity. You will be hooked.

The third lure. The guilt. It's like someone who is in sugar free diet (if there's such a thing) and munching a bar of sweet deluxe chocolate--a guilty pleasure. It's like the advertisement cliché 'sinfully good.' You'll have the feeling that there's something wrong, might be wrong, a twitch or an itchy feeling--too subtle that you really can't bring it full out but it's there and yet you go on munching and 'feeling good.' This is the break or take part. Recognize that 'something wrong' feeling and somehow you'll realize you're not in your right track; if not then you will be eaten.

Three lures are set. To some, it may even be more depending on the CHANGE you're working through. it can even be more complex or plain. But it'll all ends to that third lure at which point a subtle alarm will ring from behind giving you that narrow chance to escape the cycle of detour.

The golden experience lies in when you've freed your self from captivity. It will be the feeling of seeing a light at the end of a long dark tunnel. There can be millions of realization that can be mustered in the experience of detours, but I'm sure one common realization is that a line never runs straight but through a series of crooked swerving dots. You can never create a fine line through success without going through a series of swerving here and there.